same propensities I ought almost to be put into irons.'

'Has anybody else been harsh to you?'

'The Captain has been making inquiries,--no doubt with the idea that he
may at last be driven to harsh measures. Have you got a sister?'

'No.'

'Or a mother?'

'No.'

'Or a housemaid?'

'Not even a housemaid. I have no female belongings whatever.'

'Don't you know that if you had a sister, and a mother, and a housemaid,
your mother would quite expect that your sister should in time have a
lover, but that she would be horrified at the idea of the housemaid
having a follower?'

'I did not know that. I thought housemaids got married sometimes.'

'Human nature is stronger than tyranny.'

'But what does all this mean? You are not a housemaid, and you have not
got a mistress?'

'Not exactly. But at present;--if I say my outward woman you'll know
what I mean perhaps.'

'I think I shall.'

'Well; my present outward woman stands to me in lieu of the housemaid's
broom, and the united authority of the Captain and Mrs. Crompton make up
the mistress between them. And the worst of it all is, that though I
have to endure the tyranny, I have not got the follower. It is as hard
upon Mr. Shand as it is upon me.'

'Shand, I suppose, can take care of himself.'

'No doubt;--and so in real truth can I. I can stand apart and defy them
all; and as I look at them looking at me, and almost know with what
words they are maligning me, I can tell myself that they are beneath me,
and that I care nothing for them. I shall do nothing which will enable
any one to interfere with me. But it seems hard that all this should be
so because I am a widow,--and because I am alone,--and because I am
poorly clothed.'

As she said this there were tears in her eyes, true ones, and something
of the sound of a broken sob in her voice. And Caldigate was moved. The
woman's condition was to be pitied, whether it had been produced with or
without fault on her own part. To be alone is always sad,--even for a
man; but for a woman, and for a young woman, it is doubly melancholy. Of
a sudden the dancing was done and the lamps were taken away.

'If you do not want to go to bed,' he said, 'let us take a turn.'

'I never go to bed. I mean here, on board ship. I linger up on deck,
half hiding myself about the place, till I see some quartermaster eying
me suspiciously and then I creep down into the little hole which I
occupy with three of Mrs. Crompton's child